Friday, April 5, 2013

Highway to Hell (Or, it's 3 am and you must be lonely)

Actually, 2:30 AM is really when this story began. That was when I had to get up this morning to shower and be ready for my flight that left at o-dark hundred for a much anticipated trip Back East.

I am not a morning person. I'm ok if I don't have to go to bed first, but I could not justify not going to bed knowing I was traveling across three time zones, but that is really not too important right now. This just sets the stage for 3:00 AM when the driver came to get me.

The ride started off innocuously enough. I confess that I was still a little groggy. Not on my game which may have prevented my brain raising the red, DEFCON-5 (or is it 1? I can never remember.) warning flag. Anyway, bag in. Climb in. Sit down. Relax for a lengthy haul to the airport.

But then the driver started to talk.... (As a reminder for those who need to be brought up to speed, remember I told you people tell me stuff. Lots of stuff. Well, today I wish that I was warned because I would have just paid for parking.)

Really, I blame myself. I spoke first. Something like, "God, it's early." Seemed harmless enough. It was just me and the driver after all. I couldn't just not say anything. I'm not sure exactly how it started beyond that really.

The next thing I know, he's telling me about all the speeding tickets he has managed to escape, including one where he was sobbing because his girlfriend had dumped him and one where he was drag racing and didn't realize he had a cop behind him. Not exactly the kind of stuff you want to hear from the person you are trusting to get you to the airport on time.

But 20/20 hindsight would soon tell me that I should have been happy with this track of conversation because it was about to go straight to Hell.

The "conversation" (if it could so be called) lulled as I was quickly hacking out my Last Will and Testament on this stupid, (insert f-bomb here), keyboard. Making sure that those who needed the comfort of my last words had it., After a few minutes, he decided to broach a new topic.

That's when he told me that he had finally (!) figured out what's wrong with his ex-girlfriend. I tried to demonstrate disinterest, but apparently that is not well-read when driving along in the dark and so I was subject to his thoughts. All of them.

He explained that he "just" broke up with his girlfriend (5 1/2 months ago!!!!). He met her in a scuba class he was teaching during which her boyfriend dumped her and he chivalrously rode in on his oxygen tank to save her. But, I suppose, love was not meant to be and she dumped him with neither a heretofore. So sad.

In the time since, he has been researching on the Internet to figure out what happened and finally stumbled across an answer! Hooray! Apparently, she is a sex addict. (Although I'm not completely sure by which standards he was making this diagnosis.) And! And! He had proof!

It turns out that proof was on his cell phone. "How do you know this?," you might innocently ask. Well, I know this because he showed me! Pictures!!' Pictures of his ex-girlfriend in various states of undress!!! No. I. Am. Not. Joking!!

He then went on to say that he was going to confront her with it and that he thought she was getting treatment because she had stopped smoking (he believed). But, sadly, she hasn't stopped drinking yet. Again, the logic astounds.

Honestly, I'm not really sure what I said. This was pretty well up there on my list of absurd and disturbing interactions caused by my weird little problem (as I discussed in last post). But I probably said my usual stop-gap measure.."well, that must be really hard for you." But the conversation didn't stop.

Even after other customers got picked-up, he kept talking to me about it in "code". Did I think his plan would work? What else could it be? Blah. Blah. Blah.

After a very long journey, we made it to the airport and I was finally released back to the wild. Next time, I'm packing heat.

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